“I wanted American parents to see how this happens — how does my kid go from being in my living on their iPhone or their laptop to being purchased by child predators,” country star John Rich said Tuesday on Breitbart Daily on SiriusXM Patriot 125 when host Mike Slater asked what inspired the lyrics to his new song “The Righteous Hunter” and its powerful video. “It’s basically a parent’s declaration of war against the child predators who have absolutely taken over our country.”
“The thing that really sparked me to write this song and record it, was hearing Sean Combs, as we call him, Diddy, looking into the camera and telling America that he owns the souls of our children,” Rich told Slater. “He said, ‘I determine what they wear. I determine what they listen to. I own your souls.’ As a dad myself I looked at the demon and that screen and I said, ‘Oh, is that right? You own my kids, huh?’ And his music is his weapon. And so is mine. And I thought that his statement needed to be rebutted by American parents. That’s how Righteous Hunter was born.”
Watch “The Righteous Hunter” video:
Slater asked if Diddy was right, adding that there are parents who don’t pay much attention to their children and what they listen to or watch on TV or streaming services.
“People like him do have immense control, unfortunately, over American youth because American parents are not paying attention. But he doesn’t own them. That’s the word he used. It infuriated me to such a degree, that I had to write this song,” Rich replied.
“Also, I don’t think predators in America, which there are millions of them, have a healthy fear of the American parent,” the singer continued. “I think that’s why you’re seeing them become more and more arrogant and out in the open. And just flaunting it.”
Listen to the entire interview:
John Rich said these predators act like they think “we can do whatever we want, whenever we want, with your kids and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Nobody else is probably going to write a song like this,” Rich added. “That’s a hard thing to write about, to be honest. I tapped into my inner dad spirit, my protective spirit of my own kids. And this song was born. I mean the lead line of the song says ‘You better give your soul to Jesus while I get my gun.’”
Rich went on to walk the Breitbart radio audience through the music video for “The Righteous Hunter,” frame-by-frame:
I wanted American parents to see how this happens. How does my kids go from being in my living on their iPhone or their laptop to being purchased by child predators. How does this even happen? So the video lays out a storyline that is accurate. And I know it’s accurate because we brought in professionals who all they do, for decades now, is set up sting operations on these people who do this horrible stuff. It actually reenacts adults purchasing children in the video. It is disturbing to see it. But it is accurate. And I really believe one reason why this epidemic has gotten so big is because it is so disturbing, regular everyday people can’t really wrap their arms around it. They don’t want to look at it. They want to just go, “It’s not happening in my house so I’m going to keep walking forward.” But it’s happening by the millions. And that’s why the video was made and the way it was made.
Slater noted that children face a lot of predations online and many police officers refuse to even post photos of their children on social media.
Rich agreed and added that a “Homeland Security agent here in Middle Tennessee told me that in a twelve-month period, DHS received 36 million reports, in twelve months, parents reporting that their kids had been targeted by cyber predators — 36 million in a year. That’s 3 million average a month. That’s how big it is. That a staggering number.”
Breaking down the song’s music video further, Rich pointed out some of the well-known people who appear in it.
“The guy you hear talking is Jeffrey Steele, who I know you guys know well. He’s a Hall of Fame country songwriter. Been a friend of mine forever. He’s an undercover agent.”
“The other guy talking to him, who has possession of the kids, his name is Cheese. If you look up Mike Cheese Brown, he’s a Rock ‘n Roll of Fame manager. He managed the biggest rock band in the world for a long time. Has grandkids,” Rich explained.
“The dad is Shawn Ryan. Everybody knows him from his massive podcast, former Navy SEAL. I played Righteous Hunter for the very first time on his podcast,” Rich said. “Shawn was so moved by it I told him if I put this out, I’m going to need somebody to play the dad of the kid that’s been taken. He said, ‘I’ll do it.’”
Rich also noted that many of the men who played the bad guys in the video really didn’t want to be seen portraying such horrible characters, but ended up saying, “We’re going to do it because it’s so important.”
“These predators have no understanding of the absolute fury rage and resolve that an American parent would take against them if they ever came for their kids, if you could actually see them,” Rich said of how it would be in a perfect world. But he went on to note that these predators are getting to our children and we don’t even know it is happening.
“The problem is,” Rich went on, “we can’t see them. While you’re watching football, while you’re watching the news your kid is sitting behind you on his iPad. We don’t know who they’re talking to. We don’t know who has accessed them. The bad guys are inside your house and you don’t even know it. That’s the point of the whole exercise. I want to rattle and shake American parents with this song to start going on offense and start in your own home by building defense around your kids.”
Rich also said that he feels no empathy for these monsters.
“My lack of empathy or fear for these people who perpetrate these things on our kids — I have no empathy. I view them as subhuman. And the fact that they’re able to run loose and run wild and wreak this level of wickedness on our kids. It’s really, I believe, the greatest sin happening in America,” he said.
“I don’t think there’s anything worse you can imagine happening. And a really bad comment on our country is that America by far is the largest consumer and the largest costumer of this kind of activity. And as an American parent myself, like the ones listening right now, you have got to start in your own home,” Rich warned.
“If you got to YouTube and look up John Rich DHS, there’s a 90-minute seminar with me and a DHS agent that will walk you through step-by-step through what apps to take off your kids’ phones,” he said, “how to privatize their location, how to safeguard them from these people. What videos games they should not be playing. Like Robblox, basic games that most kids play.”
“That’s my point here man. This is not a song that I’m going, man I hope I get a #1. I couldn’t care less. I’m trying to do something significant with this. If we can make American parents take action in their own homes, these numbers will start going down because the predators won’t be able to get to them in the first place,” Rich said.
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